Victims Rights, Statutes of Limitations and Serious Injury Claims

Our lawyers have previously written about procedural “Traps for the Unwary” which occur in the context of serious injury or wrongful death claims. We write again about this problem because we continue to see this issue in our practice.
To be victimized by a negligent act such as being seriously injured by a drunk truck driver is bad enough but to be further victimized by a statute of limitations would only compound the tragedy. Unfortunately, Georgia serious injury lawyers like ourselves often see cases where innocent members of the public simply do not understand the legal rules concerning statute of limitations. In fact, we saw such an example just this week.
We were contacted two days ago by a very nice lady who had been seriously injured while shopping at a retail establishment outside of Atlanta. In fact, she had to have two back surgeries because of her injuries. She had been promised repeatedly by the store’s insurance adjuster that they were working on her claims and would offer her a settlement. Unbeknownst to her, the statute of limitations in Georgia for a personal injury claim is two years. Because the claim kept dragging out she contacted our firm one day before the statute of limitations expired to discuss her options. She had no knowledge that her claims could forever be barred by operation of law if she did not file a lawsuit before the two year anniversary of her incident. Needless to say, the insurance adjuster had taken advantage of this lady and was hoping that the statute of limitations would run and would bar her claims. We filed a lawsuit just in time to stop the running of the statute of limitations so that this very nice lady who is well deserving of compensation is not further victimized by the store that injured her. The insurance company was hoping that they could use our client’s ignorance of the law to their advantage. It almost worked.
As we have written previously, if an injured individual has a claim against a municipality, there is also required ante-litem notice. The injured claimant must file a claim with a municipality within six months of the incident notifying them of the injury, the nature of the claim, and the damages sustained. If injured by a county in Georgia, you must file a claim within 12 months. If injured by a state agent or an employee, you must also file a claim within 12 months. There are also enumerated statutory procedures for these notices that must be meticulously followed otherwise the ante-litem notice will be found to be defective. In short, the law has various provisions including statutes of limitations and required ante-litem notices which can result in a grave miscarriage of justice for those who have been victimized by the negligent acts of others should they be ignorant of their existence and not follow them.
We would urge all those individuals who have been seriously injured or have sustained any damages as a result of the negligence of a third party to confer with counsel immediately. Sooner is better than later. In some cases, if the injured party waits too long there is nothing any lawyer can do because the claim will be time barred by the statute of limitations. If an injured claimant waits too long to deal with state or local officials and fails to file a proper ante-litem notice, this also can be fatal to their claims. Do not be victimized by what you do not know. Act to protect your interests by conferring with a qualified attorney.